A to Z 2015

Friday, April 6, 2012

Focus

One of the biggest marketing mistakes is lack of focus. If you don't know exactly where you're going and how you're going to get there you can waste a lot of time and resources getting lost along the way and perhaps not reaching your destination at all.

First you have to decide exactly what it is you want to market. Is it your book, a product, a service, a belief? What is the exact thing or component you want to sell? What is the ultimate goal beyond that specific thing?

If you're an author, your current book may be foremost on your mind as it well should be. But is that book the most important thing you want to consider? If it's the only book you ever plan to write that may be the case, but if not you might want to think about the next book and the ones after that. The current book is the frosting on the cake and you the author are the cake. You are the real substance of what you should be marketing. Establish your brand so you become more recognized than your book so that when subsequent books come along the reading public will come to attention because it's your book

After your product and the core of your campaign is established begin to focus on who your target audience is. If you start an advertising campaign where you just start spending money randomly without any clear thought process involved, you may be wasting a lot of money trying to reach people who don't care. In other words if you are trying to market an extraordinary new automobile accessory you may fall flat if you buy a booth at a bead show.

An example close to home for me is the A to Z Challenge. When I came up with the idea in 2010 I had a week to get people interested. I started posting my idea on my own blog every day in order to reach the few readers that I had at that time. I then began to leave comments on other blogs with a note to lure them to my blog posts. Within the week I had 100 bloggers signed up to join me. That was the key: I had an idea that seemed like a pretty good one and I focused on reaching out to the bloggers who I thought might be interested. In the third year of the Challenge, with the help of a dedicated team of bloggers committed to this Challenge and many other bloggers interested in being a part of something big, we've turned the April A to Z into an established event. My focus combined with the added focus of others resulted in success.

Dreams are where successes start, but focus is the fodder that fuels the flame.

A bunch of F words in one blog title:

For my F tribute I'm breaking my own rules for a blogger who's always breaking the rules--and besides they're my rules so I can break them if I want to. Stephen T McCarthy's blog may be political, politically incorrect, and always well-written, but Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends is always focused. I attribute my beginnings in blogging to Stephen T. McCarthy. He may not have entered his blog in the A to Z Challenge in 2012, but he is here in spirit and often in comments. Thanks for your continued inspiration and support my Friend.

I'll also recognize Munir who faithfully has been visiting my blogs and leaving comments for quite some time. Her blog is aptly called Focus.

And it has now taken the Internet by storm!I know I'm marketing myself first. That's good though because I'm better at that than marketing my books. Feels less awkward.I'm still amazed at what's happened with the IWSG. A random idea has now taken on a life of its own.

Yes Lee you can dream all you want but after that you have to focus on how to make that dream come true. Nice quote. Great post as usual. Thanks for stopping by. After the challenege go back and look at my A I started off with a tribute to you. Everyone loved that it was dedicated to you as it should be (;dreamweaver

Thanks for sharing how you marketed the phenomenal A-Z challenge. I've been following since last year and it's great to see a grass-roots campaign blossom. Focus is key.- Maurice MitchellThe Geek Twins | Film Sketchr@thegeektwins | @mauricem1972

One of my biggest challenges as a writer is focus. I'm like a cat in that regard and easily distracted with a tendency to go off on different tangents. I always have to ask myself, "what are trying to say." Hopefully, I know. :-)

BOIDMAN ~Thanks much for the shout-out, McBuddy! I LOVED the heading: "A Bunch Of F-Words..." Believe it or not, I've never even thought of it like that before, but it's certainly an appropriate way to look at it, considering many of the topics I address on that blog and the levels of irritability and frustration I sometimes achieve there.

Yeah, I'm not participating in "A To Z", but I am reading and commenting from time to time.

You, sir, are the King Of Bloggers. To be doing the "A To Z" thang on multiple blogs all at once - Whew! - all I can say is that, "it bloggles my mind!"

What excellent ideas re focus I so agree how important that is. This challenge has made me focus on my blog and I hope to improve it as time goes on. Many thanks.I hope my A to Z is not too boring lolwww.jollyjillys.blogspot.com

I've learned this through interacting with industry professionals over the last few years. When you first set out to write a novel, these aren't the thoughts at the forefront of your creative process. They weren't for me, anyway. But they are vital to any kind of commercial success.

Greetings Lee,Yes it's me, the, as you noted and I quote, "You have been appointed as the official anti-A to Z spokesman", shy, humble and oh so unassuming Gary, who, ironically perhaps, has actually promoted this alphabetical challenge via my satirical and sometimes serious postings about it all. In fact, I have gone around, spent several hours, encouraging and supporting those in the challenge who may not be getting that much recognition. And by doing this, it means I'm not posting very much. Anyway, enough about me. A positive focus starts from within and as we do our best to maintain a positive focus environment from within, in turn, we spread out positivity, our concentrated focus, onto the outside world.Keep maintaining your positive focus, Lee. You know, despite my good natured ribbing of this challenge, that the ethos surrounding it is of a sharing, caring, blogging community. Now, that truly is a positive focus.With respect and good wishes to you and all those involved in the challenge, your friend, Gary

Focus - so true, so simple and so very hard for a scatterbrained artist-writer-teacher-blogger....(and those are just my paying gigs) Great info as always - but you know, all these wonderful posts from A to Z bloggers is a 'little distracting' :)

Focus is a difficult thing for some people. It is usually not for lack of wanting to stay present but because of something in their personality or abilities that may prevent them from doing so. That said, when one can focus and get the attention of others on the same task it is a gift worthy of sharing.

I think most of you are creative types who have so many things you want to do, say, and convey that you're exploding to get it all out there at once. Sometimes we have to pick one thing and focus on that thing.

Gary/ Klahanie -- Thanks for all you do. You give so much encouragement to others in your good-natured and playful way. Thanks for the special role that you play in our lives.

Go ahead and say something. Don't be afraid to speak your mind.I normally try to respond to all comments in the comment section so please remember to check the "Email follow-up comments" box if you want to participate in the comment conversation.

For Battle of the Bands voting the "Anonymous" commenting option has been made available though this version is the least preferred. If voting using "anonymous" please include in your comment your name (first only is okay) and city you are voting from and the reason you chose the artist you did.

If you know me and want to comment but don't want to do it here, then you can send me an email @ jacksonlee51 at aol dot com.

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A juggler of words and phrases. My main blog is Tossing It Out. The focus blog for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge can now be found at a-to-zchallenge.com where updates will be posted until the event in April begins.
Wrote By Rote is about memoir writing.
A Few Words is my Sunday contemplation blog.
A Faraway View is about dreams. Pick what you like or look at them all. I love blogging!